


The Flame Inside Her

by Estirose



Category: Final Fantasy I
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what the traveler says, she won't betray her people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flame Inside Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FireEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/gifts).



> Prompt: So the Gurgu Volcano has a temple/colony/buildings in it. Implying that once upon a time, people worshiped there. So~... let's see some worldbuilding expanding on that, please! If you want a more specific nudge, maybe exploring the nature of Kary, pre-Fiend/corruption (as a human, summon, force of nature, or anything else you can come up with)?
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, Shinkirou!

"Milady Kary! Come quick! There's a traveler in need of your aid!"  
   
Kary rose with a sigh. There were few travelers to their home, the inactive volcano Gurgu. Her people were hardy and preferred the heat of the place, but not everybody did. There was sometimes a fair on the banks of the river that surrounded the volcano, but most travelers didn't actually come up.  
   
And it had to be bad to need her help. She disliked healing minor wounds and left that to her students and the other healers. She preferred to reserve her mana for the hard cases, the near-death cases.  
   
Except for the children, of course. Kary had no time for having any of her own, but she would cast even her simplest spells to ensure the health of a child. While there were some that argued for the destruction of the weak, and to some extent she supported them, too few children and the community would die. The world could be a dangerous place and lives could be short, so if an otherwise strong child needed a little boost, Kary would provide it.  
   
She followed the young woman, a runner, to where the traveler was being housed. There was no shame in being a runner; the place was big enough that the community needed people like her, who were hardy and could bring messages back and forth. In some other city, in some other civilization, a runner would be seen as a luxury, but not here, where things were so spread out.  
   
Runners tended to get priority medical aid, as far as she was concerned. Without them, everything would likely break down.  
   
She knelt down to the cot where the traveler lay. He was burned, almost beyond recognition. "What happened to him?" she barked, but not to the runner. That would be rude. Instead, she turned towards the pair of miners that were standing nearby.  
   
"We found him near one of the crevices, milady," one of the miners said. "Burnt like this. But there was nothing that could have caused it."  
   
Kary knew that the man likely told the truth, as far as he knew it. There were dangers in going off the paths, taking a wrong turn, especially for inexperienced folk. These people had probably been used to where not to go for so long that they just subconsciously avoided the dangerous areas.  
   
This traveler, however, wasn't as fortunate.  
   
She judged the traveler's relative health. The next-to-weakest spell should at least get him on the path to healing, at the very least. Maybe cure him completely; most outsiders weren't as strong as her people. She wouldn't have to waste her magic on someone who didn't completely deserve it.  
   
But she was morbidly curious, she had to admit, on how he'd got himself into that situation. "Get him water," she said, not looking up. She didn't care who did the fetching. Water was readily available in this place, piped in through pipes meant to withstand the warmth and prevent the water from evaporating.  
   
A cup of water was pressed into her hand after a few minutes. She waited until the traveler's eyes opened. "Drink this," she instructed, and she knew her tone was curt. Others preferred to be soft and gentle with their patients; she only did it with those who deserved that softness. "Slowly. Don't make yourself sick."  
   
"Thank you," he said, after more than a few sips. At least he could follow directions. Good. She liked patients who could follow directions.  
   
"Now, where does it hurt?" she asked. Her healing spell had at least done some work, but he hadn't been fully healed. Tough, then, like her people. "And how did you get this?"  
   
He sighed. "All over, and... it was falling into lava." He gave her an apologetic smile. "I must have teleported out somehow."  
   
Personally, if he'd fallen into lava - and she had to wonder where he'd been to do that anywhere nearby- she was amazed he was still alive, toughness or no toughness. "No wonder," she muttered. He'd owe a pretty good amount of gil for the services she'd have to provide. And he'd be working it off if he couldn't provide it.  
   
"Where am I?" he asked. "The last thing I remember is going into Mount Gurgu with the others, and then... I ended up here." He looked up at her as if she'd provide all the answers.  
   
"You're still in Gurgu," Kary informed him. "I don't know how you managed to walk into a lava flow, abut you're alive and you were brought here." She was pretty sure that her tone conveyed how much of an idiot she thought he was. "Does anybody remember seeing others?"  
   
The runner probably didn't know, and a shake of her head confirmed it. The miners shook their heads as well. She sighed. Maybe he was delusional. "And you were coming to Mount Gurgu for what reason?" He was probably a trader, a tough one.  
   
"To defeat the fiend Kary and help restore the lands," the man told her. He shook his head. "This can't be Gurgu - the only beings left are monsters and fiends!"  
   
She snorted, though she tried to keep calm. "I can assure you that we very much are civilized people here, not fiends or monsters, and I can especially assure you that I am not a fiend myself." The idea that she was a fiend! What did these idiot outsiders think they were here? Surely they could understand how her people were ordinary people. Stronger and hardier than those outside, yes. But still, ordinary people.  
   
"I meant no disrespect," the man said, in a satisfactory hurry. "But the civilization that once was in Gurgu died out a thousand years ago - three, even! I don't know how you are here."  
   
Kary sighed. "We've always been here. We always should be. I'm sure we would fight whatever tried to invade our home." They were tough. She was sure that her people would be able to fight off anything that threatened them. There were nods from the Runner and the Miners. They, too, knew that their place would be safe for generations to come.  
   
Nobody would invade her home and take it over. She wouldn't allow it.  
   
He was looking up at her. "Unless... it came from within?" His eyes were unfocused; she wasn't sure he was completely with them.  
   
Once again with the accusation that Kary was some kind of fiend and betrayer. There was no reason for her to ever do evil to her people; she loved them too much.  
   
"Stay with us," she snapped. If he died, he couldn't repay her, and then she'd have to get rid of the corpse. She'd rather not have to do that. "Tell me what happened." If nothing else, his ramblings might be amusing.  
   
"I don't know," the man told her. "It's just legend, that the fiend Kary came to the volcano people and killed them."  
   
So, it wasn't her. She felt some relief, that she wound not destroy her people. She might have become a healer because of need instead of desire, but she would never do anything to hurt her own. Everybody knew that.  
   
"Maybe I've come here to die, too." He sighed, looking up at the ceiling.  
   
Kary slapped him, and he gasped. "No, you're not." He wasn't going to die, and the sooner he saw that, the better. The pain would keep him there anyway. "You're going to live, because you are part of this community now." He was tough, and the community could use that kind of fresh blood.  
   
"But...." he looked at her. "My family...."  
   
"Well, if you're telling me the truth, they're a couple of thousand years in the future." Even if any of them knew how to send him back to his own time, he was going to repay her, and that was final. "Might as well live here. Maybe you'll be able to stop us from being wiped out."  
   
He cracked a smile, even though it was more of a grimace. He surely was in pain, but there was a certain light in his eyes that hadn't been there before. A heroic type, then. Fairly useless, but he'd learn better. Maybe there would be someone in one of the villages downstream - a long way downstream - that could get him back after he was done, if he didn't want to stay.  
   
Kary didn't really care, though some part of her said that it might be a good thing to keep him around. Maybe he'd remember more of what he'd learned; maybe he was more than dumb muscle. It was her responsibility as a senior healer to keep her people alive, and she would do it, even if she didn't like it.  
   
And this man would help her, because she wasn't going to do it alone.


End file.
